An Occult Physiology

An Occult Physiology: Man's Inner Cosmic System

Schmidt Number: S-2404

On-line since: 30th April, 2008

MAN'S INNER COSMIC SYSTEM

LECTURE 4

23rd March, 1911.

OUR
discussion of yesterday, dealing primarily
with the significance of one of those organs which represent an
“inner cosmic system” of man, will be continued to-day.
We shall then find the transition leading to a description of the
functions of the other human organs and organic systems.

It was said to me
yesterday in connection with my reference to the spleen that there
might arise an apparent contradiction as regards the very important
function ascribed to the spleen in the entire being of man; that this
contradiction might well appear as a result of the reflection that it
is possible to take the spleen out of the body, actually to remove
it, and yet not leave the man incapable of living.

Such an objection is
certainly justified from the standpoint of our contemporaries;
indeed, it is unavoidable in view of the fact that certain
difficulties present themselves even to those who approach the
spiritual-scientific world-conception as thoroughly honest seekers.
It was possible to point out only in a general way in our first
public lecture
[ 1 ]
how our contemporaries, especially when conscientiously schooled in
scientific methods, find difficulties as soon as they choose the road
that leads them to an understanding of what may be presented out of
the occult depths of cosmic Being.

Now, we shall see in
the course of these lectures how, in principle, so to speak, such an
objection gradually disappears of itself. I shall, however, to-day
call your attention in a prefatory way to the fact that the removal
of the spleen from the human organism is thoroughly compatible with
everything discussed yesterday. If we really wish to ascend to the
truths of spiritual science, we must accustom ourselves gradually to
the fact that what we call the human organism, as seen by means of
our external senses, and also everything we see in this organism as
substance, or it might, perhaps, be better to say as external matter,
that all this is not the whole man; but that, underlying man
as a physical organism (as we shall explain further) are higher,
super-sensible human organisms called the ether-body or life-body, the
astral body and the ego; and that we have in this physical organism
only the external physical expression for the corresponding formation
and processes of the ether-body, the astral body, etc.

When we refer to an
organ such as the spleen we think of it in the spiritual-scientific
sense, realising that not only does something take place in the
external, physical spleen, but that this is merely the physical
expression for corresponding processes which take place in the
ether-body, for example, or in the astral body. We might say
moreover, that the more any one of the organs is the direct
expression of the spiritual, the less is the physical form of the
organ, that is, what we have before us as physical substance, the
determining factor. Just as we find in looking at a pendulum that its
movement is merely the physical expression of gravitation, even so is
the physical organ merely the physical expression of the
super-sensible influences working in force and form — with this
difference, however, that in the case of such forces as that of
gravitation when we remove the pendulum, which is the physical
expression, no inner rhythm due to gravitation can continue. This is
the case, of course, in inanimate, inorganic Nature; but not in the
same way in animate, organic Nature. When there are no other causes
present in the organism as a whole it is not necessary that the
spiritual influences should cease with the removal of the physical
organ; for this physical organ, in its physical nature, is only a
feeble expression of the nature of the corresponding spiritual
activities. On this point we shall have more to say later.

Accordingly when we
observe the human being, with reference to his spleen, we have to do
in the first place, with that organ only; but beyond that with a
system of forces working in it which have in the physical spleen only
their outward expression. If one removes the spleen, these forces
which are integral parts of the organism still continue their work.
Their activities do not cease in the way in which, let us say,
certain spiritual activities in the human being cease when one
removes the brain or a portion of it. It may even be, under certain
circumstances, that an organ which has become diseased may cause a
much greater hindrance to the continuation of the spiritual
activities than is brought about by the removal of the organ
concerned. This is true, for example, in the case of a serious
disease of the spleen. If it is possible to remove the organ when it
becomes seriously diseased, this removal is, under certain
conditions, less hindering to the development of the spiritual
activities than is the organ itself, which is inwardly diseased and
therefore a constant mischief-maker, opposing the development of the
underlying spiritual forces.

Such an objection a
man may make if he has not yet penetrated very deeply into the real
nature of spiritual-scientific knowledge. Though readily understood,
this is one of those objections that disappear of themselves when one
has time and patience to go more deeply into these matters. You will
generally find the following to be true: When anyone approaches what
is given out through spiritual science with a certain sort of
knowledge gathered from all that belongs to present-day science,
contradiction after contradiction may result till finally one can get
no further. And, if a man is quick to form opinions, he will
certainly not be able to reach any other conclusion than that
spiritual science is a sort of madness which does not harmonise in
the slightest degree with the results obtained by external science.
If, however, a man follows these things with patience, he will see
that there is no contradiction, not even of the most minute kind,
between what comes forth from spiritual science and what may be
presented by external science. The difficulty before us is this, that
the field of anthroposophical or spiritual science as a whole is so
extensive that it is never possible to present more than a part of
it. When people approach such parts they may feel discrepancies such
as that which we have described; yet it would be impossible to begin
in any other way than this with the much needed bringing of the
anthroposophical world-conception into the culture and knowledge of
our day.

Yesterday I
endeavoured to explain the transformation of rhythm, in the sense I
explained, which is undertaken by the spleen in contrast to the
rhythmless manner in which human beings take their external
nourishment. I took what was said in this connection as my point of
departure because it is in itself fundamentally the most easily
understood of all the functions belonging to the spleen. We must
know, however, that although it is the easiest to understand it is
not the most important, it does not constitute the chief thing. For,
if it were, people could always say: “Very well, then; if the
human being were to take pains to know the right rhythm for his
nourishment, the activity of the spleen viewed from this aspect would
little by little become unnecessary. From this we see at once that
what was described yesterday is the merest trifle. Far more important
is the fact that in the process of nourishment we have to do with
external substances, external articles of food, their composition and
the form and manner in which they exist in our environment. So long
as one holds to the conception that these nutritive substances are so
much dead bulk, or at best masses containing that sort of life which
one generally assumes to be in plants and other articles of food, it
may certainly appear as if all that is necessary is for the external
substances taken into the organism as nutritive matter to be simply
worked over by means of what we call the process of digestion in its
broadest sense.

Many people, it is
true, imagine that they have to do with some sort of indeterminate
substance taken in as food, a substance quite neutral in its relation
to us which simply waits, when we have once taken it in, till we are
able to digest it. But such is not the case. Articles of food are,
after all not just bricks which serve in some sort of way as building
material for the construction they are to help in erecting. Bricks
are included in the architect's plan in any way he pleases to
use them because they represent in relationship to the building a
mass in itself quite inert. This is not true, however, of nutritive
matter in its relation to the human being. For every particle of
substance we have in our environment has certain inner forces, its
own conformity to law. This is the essential element in any substance
that it has its own inner laws, its own inner activities.
Accordingly, when we bring external nutritive substances into our
organism, when we insert them into our own inner activity, so to
speak, they do not simply consent to this at once as a matter of
course but attempt first to develop their own laws, their own rhythms
and their own inner forms of movement.

Thus, if the human
organism wishes to use these substances for its own purposes it must
first destroy their rhythmic life, as it were, that vital activity
which is peculiarly their own. It must do away with these, not merely
working over some indifferent material, but working in opposition to
certain laws characteristic of these substances. That these
substances do have their own laws can soon be felt by the human being
when, for instance, a strong poison is conveyed through the digestive
canal. He soon feels, in such a case, that the particular law
belonging to this substance has mastered him, that these laws now
assert themselves. Just as every poison has in general its own inner
laws by means of which it carries out an attack on our organism, so
it is with every substance, with all the nutriment that we take in.
It is not something neutral, but rather it asserts itself in
accordance with its own nature, its own quality of being. It has, we
may say, its own rhythm. This rhythm must be combated by the human
being, so that it is not only a case of working over neutral building
material within man's inner organisation, but rather that the
peculiar nature of this building material must first be mastered.

We may say,
therefore, that in those organs which our food first encounters
inside the human being we have the instruments with which to oppose
in the first place, what constitutes the peculiar life of the
nutritive substance “life” here to be conceived in its
wider meaning, so that even the apparently lifeless world of nature,
with its laws of movement, is included. That which the food has
within it as its own rhythm, which contradicts the human rhythm, must
be modified. And in this work of change the organism of the spleen
is, so to speak, the outpost. In this changing of the rhythm,
however, in this work of re-forming and of defending, the other
organs we have mentioned also participate; so that in the spleen, the
gall-bladder, and the liver we have a co-operating system of organs
whose main function it is, when food is received into the organism,
to repel what constitutes the particular inner nature of this food.
All the activity first developed in the stomach, or even before the
food reaches it, and everything which is then brought about by the
secretions
[ 2 ]
of the gall, and which takes place further through the activity of
the liver and the spleen, all of this results in that warding off we
have mentioned of the peculiar nature of the nutritive substances.

Thus our food is
adapted, we may say, to the inner rhythm of the human organism only
when it has been met by the counter-activity of these organs. Only,
therefore, when we have taken in our nutriment, and have exposed it
to the activity of these organs, do we have in us something capable
of being received into that organic system which is the bearer, the
instrument, of our ego. Before any sort of external nutritive
substance can be received into this blood of ours, so that the blood
shall become capable of serving as the instrument of our ego, all
those forms of law peculiar to the external world must be set aside,
and the blood must receive the nutriment in such form as corresponds
to the particular nature of the human organism. We may say,
therefore, that in the spleen, the liver and the gall-bladder as they
are in themselves and as they react upon the stomach, we have those
organs which adapt the laws of the outside world, from which we take
our food, to the inner organisation, the inner rhythm, of man.

This human nature,
however, in all its working as a totality and with all its members,
confronts not only the inner world; it must also be in a continual
correspondence or intercourse with the outside world, in a continual
living reciprocal activity in relation to that world. This living
interaction with the world outside is cut off by the fact that, in so
far as we come into connection with it through our nutritive
material, the three organ-systems of the liver, the gall-bladder, and
the spleen are placed in opposition to the laws of that world. From
this side, through these organs, conformity to external law is
eliminated. If the human organism were exposed only to these systems
of organs it would shut itself off completely, so to speak, from the
outside world, would itself become, as a system of organs, an entity
completely isolated in itself. Something else, therefore, is
necessary. Just as the human being needs, on the one hand,
organ-systems by means of which the outside world is so reshaped as
to be in accordance with his inner world, so must he be in a position
also, on the other hand, to confront the outside world directly with
the help of the instrument of his ego: that is, he must place his
organism, which otherwise would remain a kind of entity isolated
within itself, in direct continual connection with the outside
world.

Whereas the blood
enters into connection with the external world from the one
direction, only in such a way that it contains that part of this
world alone from which all forms of law peculiar to it have been cast
aside, from the other side it enters into relation with this external
world so that it can in a certain sense come into direct contact with
it. This happens when the blood flows through the lungs and comes
into contact with the outer air. It is there renewed by means of the
oxygen in this outer air, and is brought into such a form that
nothing can now weaken it in this form; so that the oxygen of the
air thus actually meets the instrument of the human ego in a
condition that conforms with its own essential nature and quality of
being.

There appears thus
before our eyes this truly remarkable fact: that what we may call the
noblest instrument possessed by man, his blood, which is the
instrument of his ego, stands there as an entity that receives all
its nourishment, everything that it takes from the life of the
outside world, carefully filtered by the organ-systems we have
characterised. In this way the blood is made capable of becoming a
complete expression of the inner organisation of man, the inner
rhythm of man. On the other hand, however, in so far as the blood
comes into direct contact with the outside world, with that
particular substance in the external world that may be taken in as it
is, in its own inner form of law, its own vital activity, without
needing to be directly combated, to that extent is this human
organism not something secluded within itself but at the same time in
full contact with the world outside.

We have, accordingly,
in this blood-organism of man, looked at from this standpoint,
something very wonderful. We have in it an actual, genuine means of
expression of the human ego, which is in fact turned toward the
external world on the one side, and on the other toward its own inner
life. Just as man is directed through his nerve-system, as we have
seen, toward the impressions of this outer world, taking the outer
world into himself; as it were, through the nerves by way of the
soul, just so does he come into direct contact with the outer world
through the instrument of his blood, in that the blood receives
oxygen from the air through the lungs. We may say, therefore, that in
the system of the spleen, liver, and gall-bladder, on the one hand,
and in the lung-system on the other, we have two systems which
counteract each other. Outer world and inner world, so to speak, have
an absolutely direct contact with each other in the human organism by
means of the blood, because the blood comes into contact on the one
side with the outer air and on the other with the nutritive material
that has been deprived of its own nature. One might say that the
action of two worlds comes into collision within man, like positive
and negative electricity. We can very easily picture to ourselves
where that organ-system is located which is designed to permit the
mutual rebounding of these two systems of cosmic forces to act upon
it. Upward as far as the heart there work the transformed nutritive
juices, inasmuch as the blood, which carries them, streams through
the heart; inward to the heart, inasmuch as the blood flows through
it, works the oxygen of the air which enters the blood directly from
the outer world. We have in the heart, therefore, that organ
in which there meet each other these two systems into which the human
being is interwoven and to which he is attached from two different
directions. The whole inner organism of man is joined to the heart on
the one side, and on the other, this inner organism itself is
connected directly through the heart with the rhythm, the inner vital
activity, of the outer world.

It is quite possible
that when two such systems collide the direct result of their
interaction may be a harmony. The system of the great outside world
or macrocosm presses upon us through the fact that it sends the
oxygen or the air in general into our inner organism, and the system
of our small inner world or microcosm transforms our nourishment;
therefore we might imagine that these systems, because of the fact
that the blood streams through the heart, are able in the blood to
create a harmonious balance. If this were so, the human
being would be yoked to two worlds, so to speak, providing him with
his inner equilibrium. Now, we shall see later in the course of these
lectures, that the connection between the world and the human being
is not such that the world leaves us quite passive — that it
sends its forces into us in two different ways, while we are simply
harnessed to their counteracting influences. No, it is not like that;
but rather, as we shall more and more learn to know, the essential
thing with regard to man is the fact that at last a residue always
remains for his own inner activity; and that it is left ultimately to
man himself to bring about the balance, the inner equilibrium, right
into his very organs. We must, therefore, seek within the human
organism itself for the balancing of these two world-systems, the
harmonising of these two systems of organs. We must realise that the
harmonising of these two organ-systems is not already provided
through that kind of conformity to law operating outside man and that
other kind of conformity to law which works only within his own
organism, but that this must be evoked through the help of an
organ-system of his own. Man must establish the harmony within
himself. (We are not now speaking of the consciousness, but of those
processes which take place entirely unconsciously within the
organ-systems of the human being.) This balancing of the two systems,
the system of spleen, liver, gall-bladder on the one hand and the
lung-system on the other, as they confront the blood which flows
through the heart is, indeed, brought about. It is brought about
through the fact that we have the kidney-system inserted in
the entire human organism and in intimate relationship with the
circulation of the blood.

In this kidney-system
we have that which harmonises, as it were, the outer activities due
to the direct contact of the blood with the air and those other
activities proceeding from the inner human organism itself in that
the food must first be prepared by being deprived of its own nature.
In this kidney-system, accordingly, we have a balancing system
between the two kinds of organ-systems previously characterised;
and the organism is in a position by means of this system to dispose
of the excess which otherwise would result from the inharmonious
interaction of the two other systems.

Diagram 13Click image for large view

Diagram 14Click image for large view

Over against the
entire inner organisation, the organs belonging to the digestive
apparatus (in which we must include the organs we have learned to
know as liver, gall-bladder, and spleen), we have placed that system
for which these organs primarily develop their preparatory activity,
namely, the blood-system. But also over against this blood-system we
have placed those organs which work, on the one hand to counteract a
one-sided isolation, but on the other hand to create a balance
between the inner systems we have mentioned and what presses inward
from without. If we think, therefore, of the blood-system with its
central point, the heart, as placed in the middle of the organism
— and we shall see how truly justifiable this is — we
have adjoining this system of blood and heart, on the one side the
spleen, liver, and gall-bladder systems, and connected with it on the
other side the lung and kidney systems. We shall emphasise later on
how extremely close this connection is between the lung-system and
the kidney-system. If we sketch the systems side by side we have in
them everything belonging to the inner organisation of man which is
related in a special way, and which so presents itself to us in this
relationship that we are obliged to look upon
the heart, together with the blood-system belonging to it, as by far
the most important part. Now, I have already pointed out, and we
shall see even more definitely to what an extent such a giving of
names as we have described is justified, that in occultism the
activity of the spleen is characterised as a Saturn-activity, that of
the liver as a Jupiter-activity, and that of the gall-bladder as a
Mars-activity. On the same basis on which these names were chosen for
the activities here referred to, occult knowledge sees in the heart
and the blood-system belonging to it something in the human organism
which merits the name Sun, just as the sun outside merits this name
in the planetary system. In the lung-system, there is contained what
the occultists, according to the same principle, characterise as
Mercury, and in the kidney-system that which merits the name Venus.
Thus, by means of these names, we have pointed out in these systems
of the human organism, even if at the present moment we do not in the
least undertake a justification of the names, something like an inner
world system. We have, moreover, supplemented this inner world system
in that we have placed ourselves in a position to observe the
relationship which manifests itself in the very nature of man
as holding good for the two other organ-systems having a certain
special connection with the blood-system. Only when we observe these
things in such a way do we present something complete in respect to
what we may call the real inner human world. In the following
lectures I shall have occasion to show you that the occultists have
actual reasons for conceiving the relationship of the sun to Mercury
and Venus as being similar to that which we must necessarily think of
as existing between the heart and lungs and kidneys respectively,
within the human organism.

We see, therefore,
that in the instrument of our ego, our blood-system, expressing its
rhythm in the heart, something is present that is determined to a
certain extent in its entire formation, its inner nature and quality
of being, by man's inner world system; something that must
first be embedded in the inner world system of the human being before
it can live as it actually does live. We have in this human
blood-system, as I have often stated, the physical instrument of our
ego. Indeed, we know that our ego as constituted is only possible by
reason of the fact that it is built up on the foundation of a
physical body, an ether-body, and an astral body. An ego free to fly
about in the world by itself, as a human ego, is unthinkable. A human
ego within this world, which is the world that for the moment
concerns us, presupposes as its basis an astral body, an ether-body,
and a physical body.

Now, just as this ego
in its spiritual connection pre-supposes the three members of
man's being we have just named, so does its physical organ, the
blood-system, which is the instrument of the ego, presuppose likewise
on the physical side corresponding images, as it were, of the astral
body and the ether-body. Thus the blood-system can carry out its
evolution only on the basis of something else. Whereas the plant
simply evolves out of inanimate and inorganic nature, in that it
grows directly out of this, we must say that in the case of the human
blood-organism the mere outer world cannot serve as a basis in the
way that it serves the plant, but this outer world must first be
transformed by way of our nutrition. And just as the physical body of
man must bear within itself the ether-body and the astral body, so
what streams in with the food must first be transformed before that
which is the instrument of the human ego can merge itself with these
transformed nutritive substances.

Even though we may
say that the nature of this physical organ, this physical instrument
of the human ego, is determined in the lung-system by the outer
world, it is nevertheless so determined by the outer world that it
is, after all, an organ of the human bodily organisation. Here again
we must differentiate between what comes to man from outside in the
form of air (is breathed in and enables him to permeate his blood
directly with the rhythm belonging to the outer world) and what
approaches the blood, the living instrument of the ego in the
organism, not directly, but, as has already been described, by the
roundabout path of the soul: everything, namely, that man takes in by
receiving the impressions of the outer world through the senses, so
that the senses then convey these impressions to the tablet of the
blood.

We may, therefore,
state it thus: Not only does man come by means of the air into direct
physical contact with the outside world, in that this contact works
right into his blood; but by means of the sense organs he also comes
into contact with the outside world in such a way that this contact
is a non-physical one, taking place through the process of perception
which the soul unfolds when it comes into relation with its
environment.

We here have
something like a higher process in addition to the process of
breathing, something like a spiritualised breathing process. Whereas
through the breathing process we take the outer world in the form of
matter into our organism, we take, through the process of perception,
by which I mean here everything that we work over inwardly in
connection with the external impressions we receive, something into
our organism which is a spiritualised process of breathing. And there
now arises the question: “How do these two processes work
together?” For in the human organism everything must have a
reciprocal, a counterbalancing activity. Let us for a moment put this
question still more exactly, for certain essential things will depend
upon an accurate presentation.

In order to be able
to convey to our minds the answer which we shall give to-day
hypothetically, we must first understand clearly how an interaction,
a reciprocal activity, can take place between all that works through
the blood, all that the blood has changed into through the fact that
the different processes have come about under the influence of the
inner world system, and what we carry on as processes of external
perception. For, in spite of the fact that the blood is thus
filtered, and even though so much care has been taken to make it the
wonderfully organised substance it is, so that it can be the
instrument of our ego, in spite of this it is nevertheless primarily
a physical substance in the human organism, and belongs as such to
the physical body. At first, therefore, there seems to be a very
great difference between this human blood, which has been prepared as
it has, and what we know as our processes of perception, everything,
that is, which the soul performs. Indeed, this is an undeniable
reality, for anyone would have to be remarkably lacking in
ability to think, who would deny that perceptions, concepts,
feelings, and will-impulses exist just the same as does a
blood-substance, a nerve-substance, a liver-substance, a
gall-substance. As to how these things are connected
world-conceptions might begin to conflict. They might dispute, let us
say, as to whether thoughts are merely some sort of activity of the
nerve-substance, or something of that sort. It is only at this point
that the conflict can begin between the different world-conceptions.
No world-conception can dispute over the obvious fact that our inner
soul-life, our thought-life, our feeling-life, everything which
builds itself up on the foundation of external perceptions and
impressions, presents a reality in itself. Note well that I did not
say, in the first place, “an absolutely isolated
reality,” but “a reality in itself,” for
nothing in the world is isolated. The words “reality in
itself” are intended to indicate what may be observed as being
real within our inner world system; and to this last belong all our
thoughts, feelings and so forth, quite as truly as do the stomach,
the liver, and the gall-bladder.

Yet something else
may strike us when we see these two realities side by side —
everything on the one hand which, even though so thoroughly filtered,
is none the less physical, namely, the blood; and on the other hand
that which at first appears, indeed, to have nothing at all to do
with anything physical, namely, the content of the soul-life,
consisting of feelings, thoughts and so forth. As a matter of fact
this very aspect of these two kinds of reality presents man with such
difficulties that the most varied answers, offered by the most
diverse world-conceptions, have come to be associated with it.

There are
world-conceptions, for instance, that believe in a direct influence
upon physical substance of everything connected with the soul, with
thought and with feeling, as if thought could work directly upon
physical substance. In contrast to these, there are others which
assume that thoughts, feelings, and so forth, are simply the products
of the processes that take place in physical substance. The dispute
between these two world-conceptions has through long periods of time
played an important role in the outside world, but not in the field
of occultism, in which it is considered a dispute over empty
words.

Since no ultimate
agreement was reached, there has appeared during more recent times
still another conception bearing the strange name of
“psychologic-physical parallelism.” If I were to express
it rather trivially I might say that since the disputants had no
longer any other resource, not knowing whether spirit works upon the
processes of the physical body or whether these bodily processes
influence the spirit, they concluded that there are two processes
running parallel courses. They argued: at the same time that man
thinks, feels and so forth, certain definite parallel processes are
taking place in his physical organism. The perception, “I see
red,” would according to this correspond to some sort of
material process. But they do not go any further than to say that it
“corresponds.” Indeed, this is a mere expedient which
leads them out of all their difficulties, but only in the sense that
it sets these aside, not that it overcomes them. All the disputes
that have arisen on this basis, including the futility of the
psychologic-physical parallelism, result from the fact that people
insist upon deciding these questions on a basis upon which they
simply cannot be decided. We have to do with non-material processes
when we consider the activities of our soul-life as inner life; and
we have to do with material processes when we centre our attention
upon the blood, the most highly organised thing in us. If we simply
compare these two things, physical activities and soul-activities,
and then seek by means of reflection to find out how each of them
works upon the other, we shall not arrive anywhere. Through
reflection one may find all sorts of arbitrary solutions or
non-solutions. The only way to determine anything in regard to these
questions is actually to establish a higher knowledge. This does not
limit itself either to viewing the outer world with the physical
senses or to thought that is bound up with a merely physical external
world, but elevates itself to a certain extent to what leads beyond
the physical, and likewise to that which leads into the
super-physical world from our own inner soul-life which indeed we
experience in the physical world. We must ascend, on the one hand,
from the material to the super-sensible, the super-material. On the
other hand, we must ascend also from our soul-life to the
super-physical, that is, to that which lies at the basis of our
soul-life in the superphysical world; for our soul-life, with all its
feelings, etc., is, of course, something that we experience in the
physical world. We must, accordingly, ascend from both sides to a
super-physical world.

Now, in order to
ascend from the material side to the super-physical world, those
soul-exercises are necessary which enable man to look behind the
external, the sensible, behind that veil, of which I spoke yesterday,
into which are woven our sense-impressions. Moreover, such
sense-impressions as these we also have before us, of course, when we
observe the whole external organism of man. And when we descend to
the very finest element of the human organism, to the blood, we are,
nevertheless, dealing with a merely physical-sensible thing when we
observe it, at first, with the physical senses, or at least with the
instruments and methods of external science, which give us just such
a picture of the blood as would an external eye if it could see this
blood directly.

We have said, then,
that with the help of such soul-exercises as lead up into the
super-sensible world, we can penetrate into the foundations of the
physical world, into the super-sensible element in the human organism.
In doing this, the first super-sensible thing we meet in this human
organism is what we call the ether-body. This ether-body
(and we shall describe it still more accurately from the standpoint
of occult physiology) is a super-sensible organisation, which we
first think of simply as the super-sensible basic substance out of
which the sensible or physical organism of man is constructed, and of
which it is a copy. Of course the blood is also an impress or copy of
this ether-body. Thus we have already at this point, by coming only
one stage beyond the sense-organism, something super-sensible in the
human ether-body, and the question now arises: are we able to
approach this super-sensible also from the other side, from the side
of the soul-life, from what we experience in the sensations, thoughts
and feelings that we build up on the basis of our impressions of the
outside world?

We have already seen
that we cannot approach the physical organism directly, for the
physical and material place themselves in our way. Can we approach
the ether-organism? It is clear that we cannot approach it as
directly as we can our soul-life. When we are at work in our soul
what at first happens is that we receive external impressions. The
outside world acts upon our senses, and we then work over the
external impressions in our soul. But we do more than that, we store
up, so to speak, these impressions which we have received. Just think
for a moment about the simple phenomenon of memory, when you recall
something that you experienced, perhaps years ago. At that time, on
the basis of external perceptions, certain impressions took form,
which you then worked over, and which you draw up to-day out of the
depths of your soul, and to-day there comes to you the memory, it may
be something quite simple: the memory of a tree, let us say, or an
odour. Here you have stored up something in your soul which could
remain yours from the external impression and the elaboration of it
in your soul, something that can form in you the recollection.

We now find, however,
through observation of the soul-life attained through exercises of
the soul, that in the moment when we have developed our soul-life far
enough to be able to store up mental pictures in the memory we are
not working with our soul experiences only in our ego. We first
confront the outside world with our ego, take impressions from it
into our ego, and work these over in our astral body. But, were we to
work them over only in the astral body, we should straightway forget
them. When we draw conclusions we are at work in our astral bodies;
but when we fix impressions within us so firmly that, after some
little time has passed, or indeed after only a few minutes, we can
again recall them, we have stamped upon our ether-body these
impressions received through our ego and worked over in our astral
body. In these memory-pictures, accordingly, we have drawn out of our
ego down into our ether-body that which we have lived over inwardly
as activity of soul in our contact with the outer world. Now, if we
have something which impresses upon the ether-body our
memory-pictures taken, as it were, from the soul, and if from the
other side we recognise the ether-body as that super-sensible
expression of our organism which is nearest to the physical, the
question then arises: How does this impressing come about?
In other words, when the human being works over external impressions,
makes them into memory-pictures, and in doing so thrusts them into
his ether-body, how does it happen that he does actually bring down
into the ether-body what the astral body has first worked over and
what now presses against the ether-body? How does he transfer it?

This transfer takes
place in a very remarkable way. If we observe the blood — let
us now imagine ourselves within the human ether-body — quite
schematically as it courses through the heart, and think of it as the
external physical expression of the human ego, we thereby see how
this ego works, how it receives impressions corresponding with the
outer world and condenses these to memory-pictures. We see,
furthermore, not only that our blood is active in this process, but
also that, throughout its course, especially in the upward direction,
somewhat less in the downward, it stirs up the ether-body, so that we
see currents developing everywhere in the ether-body, taking a very
definite course, as if they would join the blood flowing upward from
the heart and go up to the head. And in the head these currents come
together, in about the same way, to use a comparison belonging to the
external world, as do currents of electricity when they rush toward a
point which is opposed by another point, so as to neutralise the
positive and the negative. When we observe with a soul trained in
occult methods, we see at this point ether-forces compressed as if
under a very powerful tension, those ether-forces which are called
forth through the impressions that now desire to become definite
concepts, memory-pictures, and to stamp themselves upon the
ether-body.

Diagram 15Click image for large view

I shall, therefore,
draw here the last out-streamings of these ether-currents, as they
flow up toward, the brain, and show their crowding together somewhat
as this would actually appear. We see here a very powerful tension
which concentrates at one point, and announces: “I will now
enter into the ether-body!” just as when positive and negative
electricity are impelled to neutralise each other. We then see how,
in opposition to these, other currents flow from that portion of the
ether-body which belongs to the rest of the bodily organisation.
These currents go out for the most part from the lower part of the
breast, but also from the lymph vessels and other organs, and come
together in such a way that they oppose these other currents. Thus we
have in the brain, whenever a memory-picture wishes to form itself,
two ether-currents, one coming from below and one from above, which
oppose each other under the greatest possible tension, just as two
electric currents oppose each other. If a balance is brought about
between these two currents, then a concept has become a
memory-picture and has incorporated itself in the ether-body.

Such super-sensible
currents in the human organism always express themselves by creating
for themselves also a physical sense-organ, which we must first look
upon as a sense-manifestation. Thus we have within us an organ,
situated in the centre of the brain, which is the physical
sense-expression for that which wishes to take the form of a
memory-picture; and opposite to this is situated still another organ
in the brain. These two organs in the human brain are the
physical-sensible expression of the two currents in the human
ether-body; they are, one might say, something like the ultimate
indication of the fact that there are such currents in the
ether-body. These currents condense themselves with such force that
they seize the human bodily substance and consolidate it into these
organs. We thus actually get an impression of bright etheric
light-currents streaming across from the one to the other of these
organs, and pouring themselves out over the human ether-body. These
organs are actually present in the human organism. One of them is the
pineal gland; the other, the so-called pituitary
body: the “epiphysis” and the
“hypophysis” respectively. We have here, at a definite
point in the human physical organism, the external physical
expression of the co-operation of soul and body!

Diagram 16Click image for large view

This is what I wished
in the first place to give you by way of general principles. With
this we conclude to-day's lecture, and to-morrow we will
continue our discussion further and find yet more to add to it. It is
always important to hold firmly and clearly to the thought that we
can always investigate the super-sensible, and can ask ourselves
whether the physical expression of the super-sensible world that we
should expect to find is actually present. We see. here that these
sense-expressions of the super-sensible actually do exist. Since we
have here, however, a question of an entrance gate from the
sense-world to the super-sensible, you will understand that these two
organs are in the highest degree puzzling to physical science, and
you will, therefore, be able to get from external science only
inadequate information with regard to them.

Notes:

1. How May Theosophy be Refuted?
delivered 19th March, 1911. Not published in English.

2.
For a fuller explanation of the terms translated in these Lectures as
secretion and excretion. see note on p. 79.